Forced jihad is not able
to stifle boys playing soccer
illegally. They kick up dust
to guide an imaginary ball -
aiming at the goalie who can't prevent
it from slamming it into an imaginary net.
Their jubilation when they score
makes me feel like
someone mixed tears with a handful of the dust
they play on - and plastered my eyes with clay -
to see again. A miracle.
Humans practicing creative
disobedience. Daily they die - making music
and dancing to it in homes no
longer private or safe or free
from censure.
A fisherwoman selling fish
in the town square would rather
have her hands cut off than wear the required
gloves - another crippling defeat for being born -
a woman. Sock laws are forced upon
encumbered women already trapped,
tripping over veils covering them
from head to foot.
No amount of fabric keeps men from
violating what it covers up. Dark secrets breed
malignancy. Boredom racks up rules and more
rules which will not save them from their lust. They
relive Salem's past - because of fear and mistrust.
Who's next? It could be one of us. Turn your neighbor
in. Turn against a friend. Turn and point a finger
or a gun.
A town full of aimless people stifled
by legalism, robbed of poetry, books, music,
art, and beauty - is ripe for plunder. But there is nothing
left to pillage, only ugly dust. Intruders
conquer in the name of Allah and true spirituality.
What a joke. Westerners are to blame for the fix
they're in. Our evil spreads to them. Ha. They can't see
their own capacity for depravity? We are recovering from spiritual
abuse ourselves and still suffer the consequences of atrocities
we've committed. We can't help untwist their troubles
or untangle our own cluttered mess.
I dream a dream too. I wish we could gather
by the river where mercy runs - and weep together,
break bread and pass it around with the correct
hand - regarding eastern customs. Someone might
bring strings to strum and we sing, or hum -
if we don't know the foreign words.
The movie TImbuktu left me stunned. It streams on Amazon Prime. I want disturbed like this. Bravo to the ones who made it. Legalism in any form does not work. Ever. Rebel. Say no. Never. I had a grandmother who claimed to be a christian. She forced jihad on our non-muslim family. It wrecked us. But not forever. Each of us is slowly healing and becoming whole, and holy - because we know about being beloved by a God who laughs and plays and dances with us……on green grass, on mountaintops, and beside still waters underneath the stars he made.
